Reflections of December

My first semester of blogging is over. Reflecting on the past months I can't remember what learning was like before this semester. I remember spending money on books just to sell'em and forgot'em after a couple months. I remember spending lots of time in Microsoft word trying to perfect my assignments for lots of classes. Everything I did was based on fitting professors requirements and getting the grade.

Now learning is very different to me. I like doing homework because there is something I can do to better the world around me. My education is fading from the me-centered, impress-the-teacher-to-get-the-grade sentiment to an attitude of improvement that lasts longer than the deadline. Case in point, to study for a final exam, I translated content from a PowerPoint lecture to a Prezi that I can invite my professor to edit. The Prezi will make his lectures a little more visually appealing, and it helped me study for the test. (I got a 95% on the final; I haven't completely got past caring about grades.)

Digiciv was a remarkable experience because it taught me to learn in a whole new way. The focus of a civilizations course is the history of civilization and at times I feel like a normal civ course would have been easier. In my other civ course, the grade was decided by three written exams that hurt my hand and the lectures beat my brain with boredom. However, I didn't have to do hardly anything, and I got the grade. Digiciv has taught me to keep on learning and to spread my knowledge. Education is not about stuffing my head with soon-to-be irrelevant facts just to dump them on a paper and forget them; education is about learning to make a difference in the world through whatever path I choose. I can't say that I have mastered all the historical content discussed in the course, but I've learned how to skim works and decide if it's worthwhile to share.

There is so much that I've been thinking about in context to this class so I made a Prezi to map my thoughts.

So what does the future hold for me? I plan to use this blog as a launch pad to further collaboration with Backpack 2.0 and other educational ventures. I've just got into a lab for the winter semester which will afford many blog posts as I learn what novel research in Bone Morphogenic Proteins is like. I feel like the blog format is nice because I can publish my ideas from the start and ask for reviews from my research advisor and other professors with whom I have a relationship. Digiciv opened my eyes to what the real world holds and I know that the principles that I've learned will govern my profession as I collaborate with peers and strengthen professional relationships through openness.

And to finish, I want to link to my favorite posts and tell a little bit about why I felt they were good posts.

1. MCAT Reformation - I really liked this post because it shows my efforts towards social discovery. I haven't published the group enough, but I figure that can come later when I'm not bogged down in finals. Just making the group was the first step and I really like the idea of saving a couple thousand dollars and helping other people do the same.
2. Web 2.0 Project continues - The post wasn't absolutely amazing, but it had an applicable screenshot to make it a little less boring and it examines my opinions between two web 2.0 formats (blogs and wikis).
3. Stupidity is Science + Sweet Stupidity - I liked these posts because first I like science; it's where I feel most comfortable. Secondly, I revisit an old idea on my blog in "sweet stupidity" and show an application of that idea (rereading research materials). It was nice to see my application of my own ideas.

I think the greatest thing about this course (and especially the blog that it requires) is that I can see myself growing from post to post and blogging for this class has helped me make connections in other classes. I know that I have grown from this class because I am accountable forever (or at least until the internet crumbles) for the things that I wrote. Accountability has made my education a sharing experience instead of just a learning experience. Thank you for reading this post and for growing and sharing with me this semester.

Open Healthcare

So I've just finished a pre-med class that constituted doctors coming once a week to tell us about the health profession. One professional after another would say in reference to the healthcare bill "No one knows what's in the bill!"

I think that someone must know what is in that bill. (As a side note, I don't believe that anything good can come from nearly 2000 pages of compromises of the simple notion "Love thy neighbor".) So how can we publicize it. I figure we need to read it. (We also need to set a word limit on crazy politicians who think anyone is going to read a bill with a quarter million words in it.)

Bills of this size make politics closed by the huge barrier-of-entry that requires one to read it for days of ones life. Bills like this one try to make democracy a monarchy where power lies in the hands of rich politicians (who typically spend millions of dollars to get elected).

So here it is, a crazy bill (seen above in one hand) and a crazy idea. Check out the open congress website for the bill and then read a page yourself from the full text. I'll read page one. This bill affects us. Take this chance to read a little for yourself.

Education from the Bottom Up

I just watched this awesome video that Kristen Cardon found and published through Diigo. Sugata Mitra spends 17 minutes showing how kids in developing countries are teaching themselves via the internet. If you're the type that wants to bridge the gap and make things more equal, then watch this movie.



This video shows the internet to be the most powerful means of teaching children what they want to know. I think it validates Marshall McLuhan's idea that "the media is the message". Students around the globe are hearing the messages that interest them and if Sugata Mitra is right, then we really can change the whole world in a matter of years, in a single generation.

MCAT Reformation

I attended a seminar on MCAT preparation. I'm considering going to medical school, but I'm not made of money. Now, I do recognize that expenses for a good education are an investment. I can understand the $230 price tag on the MCAT, but another $1800 for prep courses is too much for my budget.

I feel like Martin Luther in a way. I'm pounding my 95 theses on the internet door (I do know how to hack the MCAT Prep class sites; and I'm not that hard core). Getting into medical school should be hard, but don't believe that it should cost a lot of money. So I'm eliminating the monetary barriers to success. I first sent an e-mail to the MCAT officer in BYU's premed club to solicit ideas for forming study groups. I've also begun collecting free online resources in a Diigo group appropriately named "MCAT Prep Resources".

Next semester I'll become a member of the premed club and seek out premed students who want to save money on MCAT preparations. By finding free resources in groups and studying in groups the knowledge of the group will spread to the group members.

My hope is to reform the way students look at test preparations, turning it into a weekly study habit from the start of freshmen year until the week of their MCAT. The power to form groups and benefit from the social knowledge is far greater than any attribute tested in any assessment test. The reform isn't to save money. The reform is to change minds.

Contemplating the Beauty of Complexity

Good blog posts are not just aesthetically pleasing. Good blog posts are beautiful. But how does one define that beauty? There's lots of measuring sticks: attractive visuals, well-written content, an obvious purpose fulfilled. Trying to include everything you want creates complexity.

Like the human body, complexity can still be beautiful and natural. Ariel Szuch made a great case when she published about her book club on her blog. Ariel integrated several great outcomes into one post.
First, she read a historical book that gives context to the content of our class.
Second, she created a Prezi of her own accord. This shows some self-directed learning.
Third, her Prezi was a remix of the section of the book she read. It sounds like she is embracing the digital culture by remixing content.
Finally, she spread the love by publishing the simple steps to familiarize her readers about Prezi.

The blog hit so many points of our class that it needed a nomination for great blog posts from this semester. Way to go Ariel.

Web2.0 Project continues

The semester is coming to a close. Deadlines are now days instead of weeks away. My project team has been updating our wiki and blog with Web2.0 tools and I got to thinking beyond the tools of the Web2.0 movement.

Paul Anderson states 6 big ideas surrounding Web2.0 in his article "What is Web2.0? Ideas, technologies, and implications for education". One of the big ideas is titled architecture of participation. The idea is that Web2.0 is based on easy, open collaboration. Anderson uses the example of citizen journalism on CNN.com that gives the public the ability to report on breaking news as it happens.

I have been collaborating with fellow students to update and improve our blog and wiki formats of Backpack2.0 and I've noticed that we aren't perfect architects. The architecture of participation for our websites is based mostly off of the hosting service (blogger and wikispaces respectively) so we don't have much room to change everything we want to.

The frustrations that I felt in Blogger wasted a lot of time. I still can't figure out why my blog posts didn't carry the desired format. I typed everything how I wanted it in "edit posts" section, but it all the spacing disappeared upon posting.

Comparatively, the wiki was a dream. I clicked the "edit" button, edited what I wanted, and saved it. Done and dusted.


Perhaps if I had the appropriate skills, I could adjust the formatting problems. My teammate Brandon McCloskey chalked the problem up to Bloggers difficulties with hosting more than one editor at a time. I don't know if that's the case. What I do know is that a wiki is a proven collaboration tool.

Digital Revolution begins December 9th

Web2.0, microfinance, diigo, prezi, wikipedia: does any of this interest you? If you want to see some of the coolest stuff online, come to an evening of presentations by your peers. There will be 10 five minute presentations with questions after each. The presentations begin at 7 p.m. at 3108 Jesse Knight Building on Brigham Young University campus.

Backpack 2.0: Breaking Free from the Spiralbound

Backpack 2.0 is a developing resource for students to update and get updated on the new web tools at their disposal. We need your help. I'm part of the team making the beta series of the site (a realization of a past blog post), and we want the site to live beyond this semester.

Backpack 2.0 has everything to do with the "Web 2.0" movement. When the internet first came out, it was used by a very specific community of programmers and researchers. That has all changed. Now that practically everyone is on the internet, we need to create time-effective ways of handling all the information and tools that are coming out everyday. Web 2.0 is the new version of the internet, an ever changing version.

Backpack 2.0 is an ever changing guide to the most important web tools of today and the tools to be discovered. The efficacy of a tool is not only related to its use, but also to its popularity(why we still use Microsoft tools even though their frustrating and difficult to learn). Through Backpack 2.0, students can find the useful tools that are growing in popularity.

Web 2.0 is a broad topic, but I believe that community building, sharing, and improving the digital world are at its heart. If you want to check out the Backpack 2.0 sites, give suggestions or contribute posts on your favorite web tools follow these links: Backpack 2.0(blog) and Backpack 2.0(wiki)

Don't forget to check back often to see the new posts and stay updated on the newest tools. Thank you for adding your wisdom to the web.

Create: A digital resource for digital students

My life is so easy. I'll restate that: my life is easier thanks to google.docs.

I've got this project for my Civilizations class to create an online resource for students, so they can learn digital tools to help them in their education. Though we've got a group of dedicated students to hash this all out, making a good site takes a lot of planning and execution.

We're just finished our data mining stage and now we're going to make sense of it and try to make a quality site out of all the information we've obtained. Each group member spent a couple hours finding links on the internet to dozens of new tools like Prezi and google.docs. We posted all of these tools on a google.doc and it was a mess of information. Their was some order since the tools had been put into a table as shown.

I wanted to do some organizing, so I used copy and paste functions to move all the tabulated info into a google.doc spreadsheet. One of the nifty tools (under the "Tools" menu on the toolbar) is a sort Column from A to Z.

What took possibly 12 hours of collaborative work took 30 seconds to sort. It still needs some clean up, but the worst is over. Thank you google.docs for saving me enough time to write this post and a paper.

Obligations: Condemning and Redeeming

What's in an education? Being a college student, I sometimes ask myself why I'm taking classes on art history or Latin when my career plans necessitate the sciences only. It's easy to rant about the general education credits that every student of formal education is required to take.

Before this semester I was certainly one to condemn G.E.'s for the time they take from my specialty. However, I was struck this week with this remarkable thought: obligatory education is its condemning and redeeming quality. Let me expound.

The obligations of a formal education take time from a busy schedule. By forgoing all these extra classes students could graduate sooner and enter the workforce with specialized training from the classes they absolutely needed. To keep back students from working to pay off their increasing educational debts is condemnable. I certainly felt this way about an art history course I took last year that taught me nothing of importance and in so far as I can tell did nothing to improve my education.

Oppositely, these same obligations can afford special educational opportunities that would not happen in specialty classes. For instance, I'm obligated by my honors program to take classes and attend events that increase the amount of writing I do perhaps ten-fold (compared to earlier semesters when I wasn't in the honors program). This extra writing was condemned in the process and is now praised. This semester I have been forced to improve my pre-writing and that has improved my writing only through practice and volume. This educational outcome would not have taken place without the obligations of formal education.

The obligations of education, though condemned now, are justified in the end. That sounds like Machiavelli's Prince and perhaps what would be his approach at education.

Crowdsourcing!?! What Can I do with It?

Crowdsourcing is a new way of getting a lot of work down by a lot of people in a short time. I've posted before about Jeff Howe and his book on the subject and now I state my views after reading the book.

WOW!

That's a bit dramatic, but crowdsourcing is really cool. I have become a solver for Innocentive (though I'm no where near solving anything on their website). I've seen the inexpensive, high-quality photos at iStockPhoto and the cool T-shirts at Threadless. All these websites incorporate crowdsourcing (people create and compete against others for reputation and/or prizes). There are limits to crowdsourcing (I'm sure), but I'm not sure what they are. Crowdsourcing is finding ways to make so many things better: better quality, better prices, and always merit-based.

In Howe's book, he concludes with his ten pointers on crowdsourcing which I've mostly paraphrased below for everyone who would like to get their work crowdsourced.

1. Pick the right model--Crowdsourcing can be used in different ways; Collective Intelligence uses the wisdom of the crowd to solve problems (Innocentive is an example); Crowd creation facilitates the crowd in the creative process (iStockPhoto gives a place for people to sell their photos to the masses); Crowd voting(Threadless lets the designing community vote on the posted designs to choose a regular winner: also crowd creation); Crowd funding lets the crowd fund small businesses through loans that are impossible through corporate banks (Kiva and 40billion.com)
2. Pick the right crowd--in order for your idea to take off you need a bunch of people who are willing to participate; find the people who are interested
3. Offer the right incentives--even a token amount of money will excite some people. There has to be a satisfaction factor from participating, whether it comes from money or a reputation in the community of volunteers.
4. No pink slips--be careful about restricting people and punishing users. Crowdsourcing is also community building and improving.
5. Benevolent Dictator--People are generally good, but they often need infrastructure and commands to tell them what to do. The crowd is usually sensible and will recognize if someone is taking advantage of them.
6. Keep it simple; break it down--Whatever the big picture for the project is, keep it simple so people understand your purpose and know what to work towards. Then break down the work into manageable pieces so that people can do their part and get the satisfaction of finishing something.
7. Sturgeon's Law--Sturgeon said, "Ninety percent of everything is crud." Don't expect everything that the crowd gives you. Especially in creative circles, a lot of stuff isn't worth your time.
8. 10% is the antidote to sturgeon's law--The reason crowdsourcing works is that the 10% is not crud. And when we consider the millions of people on the internet, ten percent is a lot.
9. The community is always right--Once you've formed a community, the community makes decisions. As a benevolent dictator you have some power, but your power over the community is lent from the community and the community can take that power back whenever they want.
10. Ask what you can do for the Crowd--Remembering the famous quote from our beloved JFK, "Ask not what (the crowd) can do for you, ask what you can do for (the crowd)."

I encourage everyone to find the excitement of crowdsourcing and to use it. It's not an evil entity. The Church uses crowdsourcing to improve the church media sources.

I invite you to check the links to the different crowdsourcing websites that I have liked thus far. You can also check out some cool posts on member crowdsourcing and crowdsourcing analyzed by my professor, Gideon Burton. Finally, I invite you to comment with other cool crowdsourcing sites and ideas.

Crowdsourcing has potential, so get in a community and make a difference.

October Reflections

Overall, I feel like I’ve been improving with my blogging. A month remains and while I feel I’m improving, my realistic side tells me I need to learn much more by semester’s end in order to call this class a complete success.

I made the mistake of reading Brad’s evaluation of my blog so I feel I’ve poisoned the well of my self-evaluation. The Digiciv class is difficult in part because of its interdisciplinary studies and in part because the concepts are complex on their own. I have struggled with connecting historical content with computing concepts. Considering blogging content, lack of connecting posts to other posts and connecting historical and computing concepts in a post have been my chief failures. Right now, I’m averaging one blog per class period. I think that’s all right, but my goal is to double my blog posts in half the time that it took me to get where I am (a bit of Moore’s law, though it would be ridiculous to reproduce: writing 48 posts in two weeks and then 96 in one week). Hopefully, more frequent will lead to more connected and more varied.

I have made a maiming error in my approach to digital culture and computing concepts. Over the past month I’ve been spending my walks to campus reading Jeff Howe’s Crowdsourcing. While it was a great book and I did blog a little bit about it, I failed to post often on the ideas that it gave me by persuading myself that I would write a magnificent post once I finished. I finished sampling from each chapter tonight (look for that post in the coming week), and realized that I have been sidetracked by crowdsourcing and my self-directed learning narrowed.

I’ve also been trying to limit the time I spend blogging because I’ve felt the sprawl of internet learning. A fun youtube video then an interesting diigo bookmark. If I wasn’t swamped with homework and classes, I’d be swamped instead with diigo bookmarks and commenting on blogs. In the Consume, Create and Connect areas, I’m hit and miss.

Consume: I’ve been learning better focus techniques (timing my consumption, avoiding the internet, creating rewards for finishing in time) and it’s helped. However, I still spend too much time. I need more sampling practice.

Create: I’ve been getting more frequent with my blogs and I’ve tried to find videos and pictures to engage readers. I’ve found also that shorter is better (except this blog) for mine and other's time and for receiving comments. Make my point and let the uninterested move on. I still feel there’s something lacking.

Connect: Networked blogs opened my narrow mind. I connected my blog to facebook and over one day I got more pageviews then the entire month previously. So I decided a good way to connect is facebook. Anyone from the class that I knew by name and face, received a friend request. It’s nearly meaningless to some people, but to others it means a lot. I’ve also made an effort to comment on other blogs at least as much as I post. However, I’m still not feeling socially discovered. I need to read the Social Discovery blog that Prof. Burton wrote and revive my desire to attain social discovery.

***A note to those who aren't teachers of my digital civilizations class, I really appreciate feedback like brad's evaluation on his blog. If anything came to your mind while you read this post please make a comment. I appreciate your creative help.

Review: Uma Pitada de Tolices

For this blog, I’ve been assigned to review Sean R. Watson’s blog “Uma Pitada de Tolices”. The overall feel of the blog is well-refined. A sidebar quote foreshadows the appealing sound of Sean’s blog posts. Indeed, I think his thoughtful writing forces me to slow down and ingest his ideas (somewhat frustrating when I’m not in the educational mindset), so that I stretch my thinking.

In reading his posts, I have no doubt that he has done research and thought a lot about his posts. He gives great opinions and insights into historical content. His post “Sigmund Freud, a Lunatic” shows research, thought, and application. (Coming from a scientific background, I sometimes wish Sean would get straight to the point, but that may be an unfair desire.)

As for computing concepts, Sean gives examples of his personal discoveries on the topics. “Instructions to Everything” shares a personal argument that led to a desire to make all points empirically based. His ties to algorithms and noncomputational ideas shows he’s thinking about how the class computing concepts links to his life and experiences.

In my skimming of multiple posts, I didn’t find direct uses of digital culture, but I feel his blog shows that he’s got it. He seems to post frequently and not always about something regarding the class. His blog carries more than his name; it carries his personality.

And regarding his self-directed learning, again I feel that his frequenting blogging reflects his personal research beyond the readings from class. He has done several digital literacy labs recently (though it’s hard to tell when since his posts don’t have dates) and his connection with the onca scholarship seems to be a physical representation of the connecting that he is doing outside the class.

My only request for Sean is to dumb down some posts for me (although the monotonous mind of a future scientist caught up in his little lab world of experiments may not be the exact audience that he’s writing for). Keep it real Sean; your frequent and personal blogging is the idea that I will try to incorporate more in my blogging.

McCarthyism

Photo by Aradic-es

In our class discussion on the Atomic Age, we discussed the changes rendered by atomic weapons. The atom is powerful, and at the end of the Second World War that power was showcased at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Turbulent times followed during the Cold War; fear was read in every newspaper as the Red Scare commenced.

Senator Joseph McCarthy used this fear to catch the public’s attention by falsely accusing hundreds of government workers of communist ties. I found a two hour documentary called “McCarthyism” at the library after class and was amazed by what I saw.

I had heard of McCarthy and his scare tactics before, but seeing it helped me appreciate how the American audience must have felt. I was amazed by McCarthy’s use of a variation of the word “communism” in nearly every sentence. And to any who might oppose his unsubstantiated accusations: you must be a communist.

The documentary focused on Edward R. Murrow’s program “See It Now”. Murrow risked his career to enlighten the American people of McCarthy’s unruly behavior. Murrow had a calm, educated aura with a defiant edge that struck down McCarthy’s unsubstantiated claims.

The documentary concludes with McCarthy’s personal attack of Murrow’s patriotism and alleged communist ties and then a segment with Murrow’s comeback. Poignantly and methodically, Murrow addressed and negated every claim that McCarthy made. I loved seeing education overcome scare tactics. You can watch the 30-minute clip of McCarthy (part 1, 2 and 3) below and hopefully follow it to Murrow’s educated response on March 9, 1954.



Murrow won the public’s approval, and McCarthy’s popularity declined. America never turned to communism. I wish I could say that we’ve really turned to education. I think there’s so much to be scared about today that the public heeds politics very little. We talked about computer security in class with this. I would liken computer security to the knowledge that Murrow had. There are pop-ups all over the internet that introduce harmful agents into one's computer. There are so many scary things that can happen on the web, like identity theft. How do I know this pop-up isn't a malicious McCarthy virus that will steal my identity (and maybe turn me into a communist). We must become digitally educated so that we can avoid the scare tactics and the harmful effects of digital McCarthyism.

Good night, and good luck. (Now I'd like to hear from you. What are your thoughts on how McCarthyism is used in digital culture?)

$13,723,330,060,510.52 Have We "Bought" into Keynesian Economics?

According to TreasuryDirect.gov as of November 5, 2010 the U.S. National Debt is an astounding $13.7 Trillion. For anyone who may not comprehend that amount, if I was to make the average U.S. wage of $40,711.61 I could accumulate $13.7 Trillion in about 337 million years of honest work.

My wife is from England, not far from Cambridge University where Maynard Keynes attended, so I thought I'd compare national debts. The UK is sitting at 1 Trillion pounds.

Deficit spending isn't without it's successes, the Great Depression being the chief representative in my mind. We wouldn't have the many interstates and other public works if not for the government of pre-WWII spending money that it didn't have.

Now any economist would be quick to point out the many comparisons that I'm not making. For instance, the annual GDP of the U.S.A. is still higher than the national debt at nearly $15 Trillion whereas the U.K. creates substantially less GDP because it's a smaller country. There's lots of other considerations to be made in such a complex economy. However, just looking at the raw numbers can be somewhat disconcerting. Should we be concerned? When does Keynesian Economics fail to improve the macro-economy? I do suppose that since we've lived by Keynes we may very well die by Keynes.

A Full-ride, Digital Scholarship to the Invisible College: A Final Project to Improve Literacy

As members of this digital civilizations course we have been given a new lens with which to see the past, present, and future. We've learned and shared our knowledge. We've failed and we've grown.

One requirement for this class was to perform digital literacy labs. I have learned valuable skills from the labs that I have done and I've learned from the sharing that takes place after class on Thursdays. It would be a horrible waste if we didn't bring all these labs together so that future immigrants to the digital world could acclimate to the digital society more quickly.

I propose that we have everyone from the class donate their expertise from their labs and then a team of students could check the labs for understandability and post them all on a central site.

This project would include several different sub-projects so we can divide the labor and perhaps divide groups if there's enough interest:

• We need to compile all the digital literacy labs that have all ready been performed. This will take plenty of time to contact all our fellow students and make cooperation for busy individuals as easy as possible.
• We need an appropriate place to keep all this information and accessibility. We need a well-designed site with the ability to be added to in the future and cataloging so that everyone can find the stuff they want. (I was thinking that we could follow the consume, create, connect idea from the class)
• We need to improve the user-friendliness of the labs so that someone that happens on to the site by chance will be able to understand what it is and be able to begin use right away.
• We need more labs always. There is so much out there to learn about. We could make some really high quality tutorials and invite anyone and everyone to contribute their knowledge.

This is all coming from a guy who stayed up way too late last night, so I realize there's probably a lot more to it. I'd love to hear ideas of how to make it better or if someone has found something like it already.

Great Thinkers; Great Writers

While I was reading a long list of quoations and some terminology from the analytical psychologist Carl Jung, I remembered a chance encounter with an old friend in the English Department. Bentley was grading papers when I saw him in the JFSB. He's teaching a Freshman English class as a graduate student. I feel like I write like a freshman anyway so our conversation gets on that topic. Paraphrasing he said that writing takes a lot of thought. And then he said, "You can find a thinker that doesn't write well, but rarely will you find a writer that doesn't think well."

I've seen this simple idea repeated so frequently this semester. Carl Jung is a renown psychologist(obviously a great thinker) and he has also developed his writing so that reading quotations from him is thought provoking. I have been writing a lot more this semester and I have learned how easy the act of writing has become following thoughtful pre-writing (this idea never occurred to me until now).

There are also plenty of examples of good thinkers writing poorly. For my major, I am ever reading more and more primary research articles. It takes unparalleled mind power to understand it at all. I understand that they write to a different audience, but it's even difficult for specially educated people. Here's the point, and it's been re-iterated in class many times: improve your thinking by writing; improve your writing by thinking and writing. Great writers are great thinkers.

Modernism and other "ism"s

Modernism--positivism, realism, perspectivism, romanticism, capitalism, communism, humanism, nationalism, conservatism--this is only the beginning. This link leads to a list of lists of movements on wikipedia. We need catalogs to show the relations of different movements and what type of movement each movement fits into. With so many "ism"s I don't know what to think. How is modernism different from other "ism"s?

The suffix -ism denotes a principle, belief or movement. I suppose that includes Mormonism.

Beyond wanting a good grade, why should I learn about modernism anymore than to believe that a lot of people decided that there was no absolute truths and that things are all relative? I believe there are absolute truths. I believe there is a God in heaven that cares deeply about me among billions of others of His children. I believe He is the Father of my spirit. So where does that leave me in regards to modernism?

I do see value in thinking outside the box. Abstract thinking leads to unbelievable discoveries like Albert Einstein's theory of relatively and the entirety of Quantum physics (It's crazy to me that those ideas are proven empirically). In the same paragraph, we see the social decay that follows a world that is losing it's grounding in absolute truths. Is there a balancing-point? There's lots of questions. What's your answer?

Beta Evolution: new.lds.org

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is shifting to a new website over the coming weeks and months. The new website (new.lds.org) has dozens of new features including an online store, a page you can request patriarchal blessings (yours and your ancestors), and a personal, online study notebook (My Study Notebook).
We have a great opportunity to use these tools and give feedback on what works and what needs further development.
I've also been reading up on crowdsourcing. I watched a movie on the new website called "That Promised Day" about the coming forth of the LDS version of the KJV. I learned that the Church called returned missionaries to become involved in cross referencing the footnotes for the standard works and creating the Topical Guide. I had always assumed that experienced church scholars had done all that work.
I wish we could do a similar activity today with the online version of the scriptures. We could cross reference not only scriptures to scriptures, but scriptures to conference talks and other online media like the Mormon Messages, the Hymnbook and even manuals. There are amazing possibilities. We need everyone to get onto new.lds.org and give their suggestions. Will you . . .?

A Shelfari Monopoly

I recently finished reading the Newberry award winning Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham. I got on to Shelfari, a social book networking site to read more about the book and see what Shelfari has to offer. I learned a little about the book, but I was interested by all the empty sections that Shelfari had for Carry On. I decided to fill in by memory all the sections that I could: summary, ridiculously simplified synopsis, cast of characters/important people, setting and important places, table of contents, themes and symbolism, notes for parents, and links to supplemental material.

I hope that my submissions will help other shelfari-goers to choose to read Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. Therein, I feel, lies the problem. The success of Wikipedia is that just about everyone uses it for just about everything. I glanced at a couple other sites like Shelfari (goodreads and librarything) and it seems like they all accomplish roughly the same thing. I believe that a natural monopoly on reviews can be helpful because everyone can go to the same place and give their review or add their favorite quotes for a book. Just by increased traffic, the material is more likely to be true. What's wrong with a natural monopoly on social book networking?

Sweet Stupidity

My ignorance evidenced itself when I skimmed a section of my tech comm book about research. I've been writing research papers for years now (or at least once per year) so I skimmed quickly. That afternoon the random reading quiz came. Groans echoed in the class.

Initially I was smug thinking: "I one-upped the rest of the class; I at least skimmed it." I was wrong. After failing the reading quiz I felt humbled in my false sense of "research" security. So tonight I opened up the chapter that I failed to understand. An impending deadline for a research-based report was a great avatar to follow the recommendations page after page for my research. It was enlightening. I learned more about pre-writing and pre-researching than I ever would have by trial-and-error. I thought back to my first post for this blog. I could have felt stupid and decided to quit learning or place my focus somewhere else, but learning to learn from my stupidity created an avenue to change my perspective. . . Awe, the sweet sense of stupidity.

Help me Digital World . . .

I want to organize a crowd sourcing venture. The problem is I feel like the crowd is walking all around me and no one is stopping to listen. So here's my ideas and the problems that I can see. I need your help to fix it.

The internet is the problem and the solution. There is too much information for any one person to read it all. We need a open public interface (that may be the wrong word) where students can do social bookmarking for important sites, and chat rooms to discuss topics, and links to really important topics affecting our society right now.

I was in a lecture today where Dr. R. Chad Swanson spoke of the systems change needed in global health. I want to find an way to connect with more people like Dr. Swanson and make a net to capture the really good information on the internet. We need a place to store filtered information (like Diigo). We are creating something bigger than ourselves.

What are the proven methods for social discovery? I need your criticism and your comments to focus my thinking. All benevolent Digitites, I'm calling for you. . . please?

A Walden Experience

Nature-a pristine picture of all things good that God created for us. Nature calls to the deepest parts of our souls. There is a thrill that comes only from forsaking technology for a weekend and getting back in sync with the real world: the natural world. Henry David Thoreau forsook the comparably primitive technology of his day to experience the serenity of nature. He followed Descartes' approach in a sense; Thoreau could believe nature only through his own experience. But from that year next to Walden's Pond, Thoreau experienced what modern prophets and apostles preach about: a return to simplicity.

As I read Thoreau's experience at Walden Pond, I recognized the story. After searching

"thoreau" in the lds.org search bar, I found a number of general conference addresses that cite Thoreau's works, and particularly Walden. Elder Perry, Elder Worthlin, and Elder Maxwell use the Walden experience to emphasize the prominent distractions in day-to-day life. After reading this counsel and the most recent counsel from Pres. Uchtdorf on the subject, I see that we all need our own Walden experience.

A Walden experience doesn't have to be in the woods

near a pond. Indeed, a Walden experience only requires slowing down to appreciate the natural

beauties around us. I'm currently reading a book about sailing. The protagonist remarks often on the sublime feeling of looking at the stars in the mid-ocean night sky. I felt the sublime when I returned to the Wasatch Front after my mission in Ireland. The mountains made the rolling hills of Ireland look like the smooth countryside of Kansas. However, both Ireland and Kansas hold their own type of natural beauty.

So after all this talk, My challenge is this: plan time to not keep track of time. Walk around a local park. Do some star gazing. Leave your phone at home. Remove the distractions. Have your own Walden experience.

Choosing Mr. Bowditch

Nathaniel Bowditch was born a common lad just prior to the American Revolutionary War. He grew up in hard times. But from common roots came uncommon greatness.

Our book club selection was based on the content. Nat Bowditch revolutionized nautical navigation in his day. His mathematical intuition helped him see the problems of his day in a new light, a lunar light.

When I started reading, the book struck a familiar cord. Perhaps because I hope to contribute greatly to the world from my common, small-town background. It was also familiar because I realized that I've read the book before though I know not when. Regardless, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch catches readers with its engaging prose. I look forward to reading it again.

My Book List

First, a novel by Henry David Thoreau about his personal experience in the wilderness. Thoreau opposes urbanization with his actions. Walden is two and a half hundred pages describing the natural life next to Walden Pond. I'm somewhat partial to this book because Elder L. Tom Perry referenced Thoreau's experience in one of his conference talks. Thoreau also rights a short essay now entitled "Civil Disobedience" which gives ideas not far removed from current anti-war sentiments, however Thoreau is quite charged on the matter.

Next on my list is Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill. I think this draws me particularly because I know so little about utilitarianism. My interest in this book parallels that of The Communist Manifesto. I'm sure some English professor will lose his wings when I say this, but I haven't ever heard of John Stuart Mill before investigating this book. I think it will be worth my time as was The Communist Manifesto.

I do recognize the name Frederick Douglass which is part of the reason I am raising to my list Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. I have long enjoyed learning about the 19th century pre- and post-civil war. The perspective of a slave would be most enlightening.

The final spot on my list is filled by Ralph Waldo Emerson "American Scholar" and "Nature". I have had a book of selections from Emerson and I found these two selections are on the Honors reading list. I already have the book so why not spend the time reading critically acclaimed work.

I must now admit that all the titles above are found on the BYU Honors Great Works List. Who can blame me for killing two birds with one stone?

"North and South"

The industrial revolution spurred on a change in the social make up of England. The short BBC series, "North and South" depicts these differing societies as an adaptation of the book "North and South" by Elizabeth Gaskell. Luckily my wife is English so I had an excuse to watch this educational chick flick.

Much of the monetary capital came from the wealthy land owners of Southern England. The wealthy upper class had largely inherited their wealth. The traditionally poor classes in Northern England used the Southern capital and the availability of cheap labor to construct factories. "North and South" brings the daughter of a Southern preacher-turned-teacher to a Northern industrial town centre. The chick flick represents a large portion of the dialog, but I was most interested by the entanglement of John Thornton, the protagonist mill owner. We easily hate Thornton at the start of the series because we watch him savagely beat a worker caught smoking in the cotton mill; we learn later that Thornton acts with the understanding that his successful mill lifts himself and his workers out of the depths of poverty. The savage beating was on behalf of all the workers who would lose their livelihoods should the factory burn down because of one ignorant smoker. I must admit I enjoyed the movie.

Are we too harsh on industrious owners like Bill Gates? How many people are employed by Microsoft? What other parallels to our time do we see in this drama from the Industrial Revolution?

Reflections for September

My mind is like a computer. Like Diderot, I catalog information according to a tested algorithm. This algorithm solves calculus problems and memorizes key points to remember. My algorithm can apply models to bigger arenas and solve complex questions by compartmentalizing data.
My mind is not like the internet. . . yet! The algorithm does not emphasize relationships between old knowledge and new knowledge. It recognizes connections are present, but my algorithm does not involve connecting and thereby enlarging principles. For example, I do not use multiple tags on my gmail account.
Digital Civilization requires me to change my tested algorithm, not because it doesn't work; it's just out-dated. Digital literacy means consuming, creating, and connecting information for depth of understanding. I have failed the literacy test. But in my failure there is hope.
My failure has helped me see the necessity of digital literacy. I am refining my filtering process so I can spend less time searching and more time consuming the information I want. Blogging has made me accountability for my creativity and I am getting better, however slowly. I am connecting topics from classmates blogs and public blogs. I have begun my social discovery. How can I get there faster? Not only what do I change, but also how do I change my algorithm?

Crowdsourcing Videos

I have been amazed recently by the power of one shared idea among a multitude. Prof. Burton cited a book by Jeff Howe that I'll be picking up later this week. This video is one of several that Jeff Howe has presented about crowdsourcing.

Crowdsourcing breaks the traditional economic trends.

Rene Descartes is the man.

Descartes was mentioned in class and in the reading, but I felt there was more to "I think; therefore I am." I found this video on youtube and a commentary on the OER that I annotated in Diigo. I think the video is better without the music.



Descartes was a deep thinker. I believe if you're thinking doesn't lead to doing then it's not real thinking. Descartes builds the concept of thinking. After reading the commentary, I feel like my thoughts are the power that propels me.
Sometimes, we get caught in the rut; we go through the motions. I worked as a custodian for a summer. It was much easier to just go through the motions, sweeping floors and washing toilets.
However, I enjoyed my work more when I made myself think. I memorized favorite verses, I did large multiplication and division problems math in my head, and I even thought of ways to improve the work place atmosphere.
I believe we can get stuck in educational ruts too. We do what is expected of us to get the A. We want letters instead of knowledge. That's when an unusual phrase from Descartes or whoever can change our mind. And when our mind is changed, we are changed.

5 questions on School Spirit at BYU

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.
This is a really cool tool. You make your own questions, customize your answers and then you can send in through e-mail, post it on a website, or more. I can see this turning into more than just something fun to play with and collect opinions and information.

Diderot's Encyclopedie vs. Wikipedia

I did some flicking through Diderot's encyclopedie. I compared articles with wikipedia. Wikipedia was far more in depth than Diderot, however the base observations were the same.
I read a blog by Kristina Cummins that showed the innovation of algorithms. One commenter exclaimed how amazing it was that something so simple was not created sooner.
My point for the day is that innovation happens with one simple observation after another. It just depends what century it comes in.

Developing Nations

There is so much to say about the development of nations. Careers are based on the idea that people from developed countries want to reach out to developing countries to offer the infrastructure, the education, the security and the health benefits of the First World. But the dynamics of really helping those countries are so diverse. A fellow thinker contemplated the possibilities of technology in developing the USA's bureaucratic democracy into a true democracy. This made me think about underdeveloped countries and their status. I found an interesting blog discussing Afghani development and the negative externalities that may arise from the recent Lithium find. We see similar examples in Africa, where corruption in bureaucracies limits the power of democracy. Would-be world powers flounder. I think we recognize that autocracy could work in a perfect society, but we don't live with perfect people. Open government is the ideal in a non-ideal world. My question: How do we develop nations to the point that they can function and contribute to the world?

Freedom of Progress

The Reformation and the recent Free Software Movement are different revolutions, yet they fight for the same idea: freedom of progression. History has shown two things: 1) free people have no limit to their progression and 2) free people do not always progress.

Reformists pushed for a change in housekeeping. People deserve the right to progress or digress should they please, but the idea of the day was to limit progression in the name of saving traditions.

The Free Software Movement fights the modern authorities of copyright laws like reformists fought the close-minded catholic authoritarians. The Free Software Movement calls for all software to be open for public use (without copyright); it also entails that software should be open for modification and redistribution by consumers.

Now there is a voice from the dust full of promises and warnings to the free people. I reflected on numerous passages of The Book of Mormon, where in God promises prosperity to the nation that keeps his commandments. Progression and prosperity follow proven moral ideals. On the flip-side, we lose that promised progression when we forsake morality.

The Book of Mormon tells of a free people who progressed when they followed God, but eventually they were destroyed because the forsook their moral leaders. (Could a similar destruction happen in the digital age?) Like the Reformation, the Free Software Movement will be successful only if honest, moral people retain control.

Data Gathering

If you learn anything, learn that there is more than one right way to accomplish your digital tasks. I learned yesterday how many types of data gathering sites there are. Mindmeister, creately and bubbl.us to name a few. From the playing that I did, I saw that you could organize ideas and links in a orderly fashion by just playing with the tools or watching tutorials.
I was not able to find a completely free web application for data gathering. While the ones I checked initially said that they were free, reading the fine print unveiled the fact that they each had a free trial period after which one would need to make a monthly or annual subscription. I'll post back when I find a free data gathering app that is always free.

Listening Ears

More than ever, we have an audience. I was inspired by hsmaggie's post"Yeah, but who is reading it all?" She relates a story of her husband's discontinued blogging for his trip because "no one was commenting on the blog, so he figured no one was reading it either". He was wrong, and it turns out our message can go a lot farther than we would expect.

As creating media became more available in the 15th and 16th centuries, standards for publication were lowered. Before the innovation of the printing press, the Bible was the only regularly reproduced publication. Contrast that extreme to the extreme we see today. Anyone can create media through a number of avenues that can be viewed by billions of people worldwide. It takes little more than typing and clicking abilities. The printing press began a revolution. I consider the computer as a continuation and enlargement of that same revolution. We are able to consume, create and connect ideas more easily than ever before, and history would tell us that it's only going to get easier(that is if we remain literate, digitally and otherwise). I'm seeing more and more that our ability to consume, create and connect with the world is the determining factor of success. Perhaps it always has been.

Stupidity is Science

Classes have started for Fall 2010 and the new semester buzz is in the air. As I navigated blackboard this week to find the syllabi for my classes, I stumbled on an article that gave me hope in my continuing journey to graduation and research. In The Journal of Cell Science The Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research, Martin A. Schwartz Ph.D writes:

Science makes me feel stupid . . . . It's just that

I've gotten used to it. So used to it, in fact, that

I actively seek out new opportunities to feel

stupid. I wouldn't know what to do without that

feeling. I even think it's supposed to be this way.

In my Civilizations course this semester I know these opportunities will present themselves often. Everyone feels stupid sometimes, however this is no reason to quit and is not an excuse to find an easier route. Recognize that feeling stupid does not indicate real stupidity: it is a necessary part of discovery. The only kind of bad stupidity is recurring stupidity. The other, useful, kind of stupidity becomes a strength as we actively embrace it on our individual paths of discovery.